Hillary Clinton State Department Emails, Mexico Energy Reform, and the Revolving Door
Three Flexians from HillaryLand envision and implement a Mexico energy “reform” architecture from which they personally benefit.
Read more...Category Archives: Banana republic
David Sirota: Hillary Clinton Is Running Away from Her “Free Trade” Record
Yet again, HIllary Clinton tries to distance herself from her “sell out the middle class” policies, this time on “free trade”.
Read more...Bill Black: Republican Candidates Agree that the System is Rigged for the Rich
The Republican candidates for President all made shameless appeals for even more plutocracy, in particular preferential treatment for the rich.
Read more...2:00PM Water Cooler 8/7/15
Today’s Water Cooler: Republican debate, job stats and liftoff, Ferguson one year after, Stewart on bullshit, TPP still twitching, slowness
Read more...Dutch Pension Fund Escalates War Against Private Equity Secrecy, Won’t Invest in Funds that Fail to Disclose All Fees and Costs
By challenging the private equity secrecy and fee-gouging regimes, a major Dutch pension fund shows how craven its US counterparts are.
Read more...Media Hypes Praluent, the Next Expensive “Blockbuster” Not Yet Shown to Benefit Patients
Another example of the corruption of science: the press falls all over itself hyping Praluent, a new cholesterol-lowering drug with remarkably inconclusive clinical trial data behind it. As Roy Poses points out, “The clinical benefit of the drug was not evident in this trial.”
Read more...Lagarde Supports IMF Ukraine Representative in Propaganda Trip to Venice, All Expenses Paid
The first direct evidence of IMF hostility towards Russians as a matter of policy, including multiple violations of the IMF staff code, and an attempt by Lagarde herself and her spokesman Rice to cover up the misconduct of their IMF representative in Kiev.
Read more...China’s Stock Market Collapse
Those who are looking only at Greece and the crazy behaviour of the European Union may well be looking in the wrong direction to identify the next big crisis as it comes.
Read more...60% of the CEOs of America’s “Great Health Systems” Have No Educational Background in Health Care
Why having generic managers run health systems is a bad idea.
Read more...New York Department of Financial Services Slams Bank Fixer Promontory Group, Hitting it in Its Profits and Reputation
A decision by the New York State Department of Financial Services appears to be finally crimping the wings of this powerfully placed bank fixer. Promontory is being denied access to information that effectively locks it out of a large swathe of consulting work that is important to its business.
Read more...Libor Trader Sentenced to 14 Years for Market Manipulation. So What About His Bosses?
While it’s gratifying to see former UBS trader Tom Hayes go to jail for large-scale Libor bid rigging, his bosses had to have known what he was up to. So when will we see their indictments?
Read more...Meet the Hedge Funders and Billionaires Who Pillage Under the Shield of Philanthropy
For every dollar these billionaires give, they take 44 from the rest of us.
Read more...Another Private Equity Scam – Tax Receivable Agreements
As one tax expert put it, “Private equity is a tax gimmick with an acquisition attached.” We’re going to discuss a very big tax gimmick that virtually no private equity investors seem to be aware of. The failure of private equity general partners to publicize a tax scheme that on paper should benefit their limited […]
Read more...Republican Rank-and-File Lines Up Against Financial Regulation
Let us not kid ourselves that the Democratic party is also for the most part out to gut financial regulation.
The only reason that there is more space between Congressional Republicans and Democrats than usual is the pro-business, pro-bank “blue dog” wing of the Democratic party has gotten deservedly slaughtered in the last two Congressional elections for selling out what used to be the American middle class. So the more progressive-minded survivors are a bigger faction on a relative basis than they once were.
This Real News Network interview with Bill Black covers both a critical slice of the history of financial regulations (or more accurately, its rollback) as well as some of the current dynamics.
Read more...Dealing With Mass Killings in America: Funding Our Children, Not Our Wars
As mass killings become more common in the US, law enforcement agents fixate on and unduly publicize cases with jihadist links. As this post describes, that serves as an excuse for even more intensive surveillance.
Yet as Mark Ames described in one of the first works on these rampages, in his book “Going Postal,” there were no obvious similarities among the perps. They weren’t all, or even often, isolated losers. They did not typically come from broken homes. They were generally of above average intelligence. Aside from being disproportionately male, the other common thread was that they had been bullied.
If Ames’ observations still hold true, the lack of distinctive demographic or behavioral predictors of those who go on rampages means that heightened surveillance is at best another form of security theater, and at worst an excuse for Stasi-like dossier-gethering.
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